Travel survey: Hotel loyalty programs not a priority for guests

If you are a member of a hotel loyalty program, you probably are not very loyal to your hotel.

That is one finding of a survey of about 4,000 travelers by Deloitte & Touche about how they book hotels and what guides their decisions.

Only one in four travelers spent more than 75 percent of their nights at their preferred brand, and 65 percent of frequent travelers reported staying in two or more hotel brands in the past six months, according to the recently released survey.

Only 19 percent of those who responded to the survey said that a loyalty program was very important when choosing a hotel.

What are more important factors to travelers? Room rate ranked as very important to 47 percent of the travelers, with free parking, comfort and location also ranking high.

If you are a member of a hotel loyalty program, you are probably not very loyal to your hotel, according to a survey of about 4,000 travelers by Deloitte & Touche. (Gary Reyes/Staff Archives)
(
Gary Reyes
)

For loyalty programs to succeed, the Deloitte study suggested that hotels crunch some data and find what is most meaningful to guests, such as free Wi-Fi, parking, breakfast or lower rates.

Laurie Goldstein, a spokeswoman for Marriott International Inc., one of the nation's biggest hotel chains, disagrees with the study's conclusions. She said that guests at the hotel chain get to use their points for car rentals, airline tickets, music downloads, merchandise, event tickets and other items.